


The Atlas

by LaBelleVilleneuve



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 06:50:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10565901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaBelleVilleneuve/pseuds/LaBelleVilleneuve
Summary: It takes a while for Belle to recover from seeing the sad remains of her little home in Paris. Days later, it still causes a twinge in her chest to think of it. But slowly, surely, her curiosity creeps back in, and, after reading a surprisingly interesting passage on trade in Provence, she asks the Beast if they might use the Atlas again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A short piece inspired by my strong belief that the enchanted atlas was terribly under-utilized in the plot of the film. What better way to woo a girl who wants adventure in the great wide somewhere?

 

 

 

It takes a while for Belle to recover from seeing the sad remains of her little home in Paris. Days later, it still causes a twinge in her chest to think of it. But slowly, surely, her curiosity creeps back in, and, after reading a surprisingly interesting passage on trade in Provence, she asks the Beast if they might use the Atlas again.

_See it in your mind’s eye, and hold it in your heart._

She smells it before she can see it.

_Lavender._

Belle opens her eyes, and is greeted by a world brimming with soft, purple flowers. Row after row, hill after hill, horizon to horizon. More flowers than Belle has ever seen in her life. The stalks sway gently in the breeze, sending ripples over the landscape. The scent surrounds them, strong and sharp, almost overwhelming. The book she’d found in the library had described these fields, of course, but no words could have replaced the feeling of standing right there, herself, in the lavender fields of Provence.

“It’s beautiful.”

She can think of nothing better to say. Nothing she can add to this moment. She is answered with a sudden roar.

Belle jumps and turns to face the Beast, who is holding a hand - a paw? - over his mouth. Before she can speak, he does it again. The sound is jarring, unlike anything she has ever heard. But his motions are unmistakable, however strange his form.

The Beast is sneezing.

Soon Belle’s hand is over her own mouth, a little in shock, but then to stifle the laughter she feels creeping up her throat. He notices the look on her face, draws in his brows, and - sneezes again. This time she can’t hold it in.

“Are you alright?” She is able to ask moment later.

“I think…I need to go,” he manages, half holding his breath.

Belle bites her lip to keep from laughing again, and surveys the fields one more time. She bends down to pick a spray of flowers, another burst of odour tickling her nose as she breaks the stalk.

“Alright,” she agrees. “Let’s go.”

Back in the library, the Beast sneezes once more, terribly startling a broom and dust pan around the corner.

“Perhaps, next time…” he rumbles, when he is recovered,“some place with…less flowers.”

Belle allows her self a small chuckle, but nods. Then she smiles, because she resolves that, yes, there will be a next time.

 

* * *

 

After their semi-successful trip to Provence, Belle begins researching in earnest. The library holds many books on geography, but it is difficult to tell from a map what a place will be like, so she also combs through trade manuals, memoirs, and other personal accounts of places in France she’d long wished to see.

The idea comes to her all at once, and she seeks out the Beast in the gardens to ask him about it immediately.

“Can we see people?”

The Beast had been walking among the rose bushes, as he often did. He always seemed calmer among them. At least, they didn’t make him sneeze, as the lavender had. She cannot help but interrupt him, though. And for some reason, her question gives the Beast pause.

“You can see them,” he replies after a moment, “but they won’t see you.”

“Well that’s alright,” she blurts, and the look he gives her is slightly puzzled.

“Well, what I mean is…could we see a play?”

There are many fine playhouses in France, but it takes some time to find one presenting what Belle wants to see. When she tells the Beast, he shakes his head at her, but something makes him say yes - though he insists they dress for the theatre, despite Belle’s protests that no one will see them.

In the end, Belle suspects she might as well be wearing rags, so poorly did she fit in among the audience of the Palais Cardinal. Though not one to care much for fashion, she knows that the simple pink gown she is wearing simply pales in comparison to the frothy confections adorning the women around them, oblivious to their presence. The building itself is also incredibly ornate, having been carved, painted, and gilded by the greatest artisans of Paris. The ceilings are so high, the velvet curtains so lush. It all looks fit for a king. She remembers what Mrs. Potts and the others told her about their lives before the curse, and wonders if the Beast’s castle looked more like this, once. She wonders if its inhabitants were once as opulent and fanciful as these people, too.

Then the curtain rises, and such thoughts are chased away.

“ _Two households, both alike in dignity,_  
_In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,_  
_From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,_  
_Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean…_ ”

Belle has read the words many times, but to hear them like this, to see the characters before her…it’s like a dream. The story has never felt so real. Even the Beast, reluctant at first, seems still and enraptured by the second act. She finds herself laughing out loud at the jokes with the rest of the audience, and holding her breath with them at the sorrows. During the final scene, she feels her chest tighten, and her eye water. Never has she seen such passion. When it ends, Belle leaps out of her seat to applaud like everyone else, no matter that they couldn’t hear her.

She feels exhilarated and inspired when they get back to the library, and she asks the Beast what he thought, but his eyes are on the floor, and he does not answer.

“Didn’t you like it?” She asks.

He looks at her as though through some fog, and she cannot tell what he is thinking. Finally, he shakes his head and replies quietly, “it was quite well done.” He then excuses himself, leaving her alone between the dark aisles of books.

When Mrs. Potts brings her some late night tea - perhaps only an excuse to ask about the play - Belle shares her dismay.

“I knew he thought it was silly, but I didn’t think he’d be so…put out. I thought it would be fun, but he was so serious, in the end.”

“Perhaps he just…sees things differently now, dear,” Mrs. Potts suggests. Belle isn’t sure she knows what that means.

But she decides they should see comedies from now on.

  

* * *

 

And so it goes. Belles spends much of her days reading, finding new places for them to go. The Beast has mirth in his eyes when she approaches him to ask, her eagerness to see the world seeming to touch something in him. He acts as though he goes along only to humour her, but she finds him so easily in the gardens now that she knows he must be lingering there each afternoon, waiting for her.

She brings them to the royal orchards, where the air is sweet with the smell of ripe fruit. The branches are all too high for Belle, but the Beast plucks down a plum for her to eat, and when the juice of it runs down her chin, he laughs.

One Sunday, they walk the quiet, smoky halls of Notre Dame, where Belle marvels at the soaring pillars of smooth, ageless stone. Colourful rays of light stream through the stained glass windows, and the smell of frankincense permeates the room. Soft but solemn voices chant their prayers to heaven, and the sound is so immaculate, they dare not speak.

They attend a ball in Versailles - the Beast’s idea. For the music, he says. The light of a thousand candles glitters almost as brightly as the jewels the dancers wear, and Belle could swear the Beast is gently nodding his head to the music. She wonders how long it has been since he has seen so many smiling faces.

They sit in a painter’s studio, watching the oils spread and mix on the canvas until they take the form of the painter’s muse, and Belle thinks of the ripped portraits in the West Wing.

They collect shells along the edge of the sea, which roars and crashes with such power it makes even the Beast seem small.

Until finally, one day, Belle is ready to see Paris again.

 

* * *

 

Belle was very small when she left, so the street on which she had lived does little to pique her memory. Not the sight of it, at least. But she does find that there is something about the hustle and bustle of people all around her that feels somehow familiar. The Beast seems reluctant to step out into the street, beyond the shadow of the doorway they appeared in, so she takes his hand to pull them both out into the light.

The street is a riot of sights and sounds that Belle finds thrilling. There are women gossiping as they hang laundry, children shrieking and laughing in the streets, horses snuffling their way down the road. Bells are ringing in the distance, voices shouting for business at the market down the way. The smell of hot croissants reaches her nose, combined with the less pleasant smells of a city. The street is so full that people practically scrabble over one another to pass through the crowd, and Belle’s heart skips a beat in her chest.

Everything is so _alive_ here. She hadn’t realized how very much she’d missed that feeling, even the quainter version of it she found in her provincial little town. It is the picture of everything the Beast’s castle isn’t.

A small voice catches her attention, and she finds its source in a little girl on a dusty stoop not far away. Belle walks closer to find the girl is clutching an old grammar school primer, trying hard to sound out the words. It brings her back to a moment, one she forgot she knew, where her mother had sat out in the sun, helping Belle sound out her first letters. She remembers her mother’s smile, and this time, it doesn’t hurt so much.

Belle sees the word the girl is focusing on, and opens her mouth to help - but of course, the little girl can’t hear her. No one on the street can. She’s not really here. Belle looks around to find the Beast, returned to the doorway where they started. He’s been watching her with dark eyes, and quickly turns away, but not before she sees it.

There is fear, there.

He knows as well as she does that none of this is real. Not the sounds, not the smells. Not really. Whatever joy it brings her to see the world like this, she is still apart from it. As he is. As he has been, all this time.

And one day, it will stop being enough for her.

The Beast cannot leave his enchanted prison, but Belle? If she wanted to, would he still stop her? For the first time, she is unsure.

A woman calls out a window, and the little girl hops up and runs off. The street suddenly seems too loud, and Belle returns to the Beast’s side.

“Let’s go home.”

When she goes looking for him the next day, the Beast is not waiting for her in the garden. Belle tries to read, but cannot seem to focus, and accomplishes little by the time the shadows grow long.

When the Beast doesn’t join her for dinner, Belle seeks out Mrs. Potts and the others, who tell not to worry, he’s just in a bit of a mood.

“Perhaps we could do something about it,” she offers, a small sense of guilt gnawing at her.

“The master is not used to…being cheered up…” Mrs.Potts replies carefully.

Suddenly, Belle remembers the ball at Versailles, where the music had been so beautiful, and the Beast had seemed almost happy. He’d suggested it, after all.

“I know,” Belle says, triumphantly. “We’ll have a dance.”


End file.
